Half in Shadow Read online

  His smug air seemed to annoy her, though, for: “Oh, the shot-tower ghost isn’t any fraud!” Adelia proclaimed tauntingly, with an affectionate pat for Uncle’s gnarled old hand—at the moment gripping his cane as if he intended breaking it over Mark’s head. “I’ve seen it, myself,” she announced. “Lib has, too—haven’t you, Lib?” she demanded, and I nodded solemnly.

  “Now you’ve seen it!” Mark jeered, flipping a coin in the air and watching it glint softly in the mellow glow that slanted through the fan-light over the door. “Anybody else? Hmm? I’ve been hearing about this spook of Uncle Robert’s ever since we moved here from Connecticut—but I’ve yet to catch a glimpse of him myself! A Confederate soldier with his legs cut off—how touching! Making shot for his comrades up to the day of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. And when the sad news comes, he throws himself off the tower into the river... Haha!” Mark chuckled suddenly, fastening a cold matter-of-fact young eye on Uncle Robert’s face. “Come on, Unk. Didn’t you make that one up out of whole cloth? It sounds like something out of one of those old paper-back dime novels I found in the attic. Capitola, the Madcap, Or: Love Conquers All...”

  “Young man!” Uncle Robert stood up abruptly, quivering. “Ah must ask you to mend yoah Yankee manners to yo’ elders, suh! Are you havin’ the... the temerity to dispute my word, you little...?”

  At that moment Shadrach took over, gently but firmly. Throwing a light shawl around his master’s shoulders, he maneuvered around beside him, preparing to help him to his feet.

  “Marse Robert, hit’s yo’ bedtime,” the old darkey pronounced. “Come along, now, Marse Robert. Tell de young folks good night, cause Ah’m fixin’ to help you up to yo’ room.” . ~ .

  “Shadrach—damme, Ah’ll take a hoss-whip to yo’ black hide!” My uncle roared petulantly, shrugging off the shawl and banging on the porch with his cane. “Quit babyin’ me, confound it! All’ll go to bed when Ah please! Get! Get away from me! Ah’ll bend this cane over youah nappy head! Ah’ll_____”

  “Yassuh,” said Shadrach imperturbably. “Hit’s leb’m-thirty. Time you was asleep. Come on, now, Marse Robert....” He tugged gently at my uncle’s arm, finally wielding his heaviest weapon, the mention •of my greatgrandmother. “Miss Beth wouldn’t like you settin’ up so late, catchin’ yo’ death o’ dampness...

  “Oh, the devil!” Uncle snapped at him peevishly. “Ah’m cornin’, Ah’m cornin’! Soon as Ah tell these pretty young ladies good night... and take a cane to this young smartalec!” He glared at Cousin Mark, who grinned back at him lazily.

  “It’s not a wise thing,” Uncle Robert intoned ominously, “to joke about the supernatural or regard it as a... parlor-game! And one of these days, young suh, you’re going to find that out in a way you’ll never forget!”

  WITH that, and followed by a chorus of subdued giggles, he stamped into the house, leaving Adelia and me to bid our guests farewell. At the gate, after the carful of others had rolled away toward the ferry, Cousin Mark lingered, trying to persuade Adelia to kiss him good night. I would gladly have obliged, but my red-headed Georgia cousin switched away from him coolly, tossing her long auburn mop of curls.

  “No, I won’t!” she said shortly. “The idea, poking fun’ at Uncle Robert right to his face! You ought to be ashamed of yourself Mark... and besides, you’re such a smartalec, like Uncle said! How do you know there’s no such thing as a ghost, just because you happen never to have seen one?

  Mark laughed softly, derisively. “And neither have you and Lib,” he added. “I saw you wink at each other. Did you really think I’d swallow that silly yarn about the Confederate soldier?”

  Adelia nudged me all at once, a signal to stand by and back up whatever mischief she had in mind.

  ‘I’ve just remembered,” she said quietly, “what tomorrow is! Lib . It was a year ago that...that we saw the soldier throw himself off that lookout porch at the top of the tower... Remember? You and I were riding horseback up the hill, just at sundown. And you heard that awful scream, and we glanced up just in time to... to see that shadow falling from the tower, into the river! On July 9, the date of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox!”

  “It was April 9!” I hissed in her ear. “You’ll ruin everything...!” “

  Sh-h!” Adelia hissed back, giggling. “A damn yankee wouldn’t know what day it was, hardly the year!... Oh, I’ll never forget that sight,” she whispered, shuddering. “Not as long as I live! The look of despair on that man’s face, the glimpse I got of it as he fell down, down.

  ”Bah!” Mark cut her off with a snort

  “You’re as big a liar as your Uncle Robert! He and his ridiculous . . ectoplasmic replica!”

  “But it’s true!” I chimed in solemnly. “When we told about it, they dragged the river. But no body was ever-found, and none turned up at the Falls downstream. He was wearing a... a shabby gray uniform. And... and a gray forage cap.” I elaborated, warming to our little hoax. “And he wasn’t more than four feet tall—his legs, you know; they’d been shot off by cannon-fire.

  Adelia punched me again sharply. “Don’t overdo it!” she hissed, then, with a grave frightened look turned on our cousin from Connecticut; “Oh, Mark, you mustn’t scoff at such things! Tomorrow is the date of the surrender. Maybe if... if you watch for him on the hill at sundown, you’ll... you’ll see him, too!”

  MARK snorted again, and strode toward the tethered horse he had ridden across the fields to Uncle’s house earlier. In tan riding pants and sports shirt open at the neck, he was the handsomest thing I had ever seen—-barring, of course, Francis X. himself. I sighed faintly as Adelia and I, arms about each other’s waist; watched him mount and start to ride away, then wheel his spirited little bay back to face us.

  “So tomorrow’s the witching hour, huh?” he laughed. “Okay, I’ll be here—with bells on! But Iet’s make this worth while, cuz!” he drawled tormentingly. “How about a little bet of... say, five bucks? You pay me if our ghost doesn’t show. up. If I see him, I’ll pay you... and gladly!” he jeered.

  Adelia stiffened. I saw her pretty chin set and her brown eyes flash, taking up the challenge Mark’s cool blue eyes had thrown her.

  “All right, Mr.Smartalec!” she snapped back. “It’s a bet! Just be mighty sure you bring that five dollars!”

  “Just you have yours in your hand!” Mark taunted, “Want to make a little side bet, huh? A-kiss, maybe? That kiss you won’t give me tonight?”

  “That’s a bet, too!” Adelia answered briskly. “That’s how sure I am that there is a tower ghost, and that you’ll see him tomorrow!”

  “Okay, carrot-top!” our cousin laughed. “Remember, you’re no Southern gentleman if you don’t pay up!” He galloped, away with that, and we strolled back toward the house together, Adelia and I, listening to. His lusty voice singing, out of sheer perversity, Sherman’s “Marching Through Georgia”, Adelia stamped her foot.

  “I hate that... that...!” she burst out, unconvincingly. “Lib, we’ve just got to fix his wagon tomorrow!” Her eyes began to twinkle all at once, and she ran up the curving staircase to burst into Uncle’s room, where Shadrach was trying to make him drink his hot milk instead of another

  whiskey.

  Quickly she related the bet to Uncle Robert, whose mild old eyes lighted up also with mischief. He slapped his knee, chuckling.

  “We’ll fix him!” he promised. “Shadrach, get me young Saunders on the phone, Bill Saunders’ boy in Wytheville. He’s short enough to look... Hmm.” He tugged at bis white beard, grinning. “Where’s that old ratty Confederate uniform that belonged to your Great-uncle Claud, Lib? In the attic, is it? Well, get it out... That Saunders boy won the highdive contest at YMI last year,. didn’t he? Yes. Then, jumping off that lookout porch on the tower and landing in the river won’t be much of a feat for him. Yes, hmm. Then he can swim underwater, and come up inside the shot well. Hide under the cauldron until young Mark stops looking for him to come up...!”

 
; “Uncle Robert, you old faker—I knew you’d think of something!” Adelia burst out laughing, and hugged him, then went dancing around the high-ceiled bedroom where four generations of our kin had been born, made love, had babies, and died. “I can’t wait to see that smarty’s face!” she exulted. “I just can’t wait!”

  Shadrach, with his glass of hot milk, had been fidgetting around in the background, his wide negro-eyes flitting from one of our faces to the other. Suddenly he blurted: “Marse Robert... s’posin’ dey is a shot-tower ha’nt up yonder? Seem lak I recollect dey was a little runty soldier what got one leg shot off at Murfreesboro. Name o’ Jackson... and he did make shot up yonder in de tower. And he did jump’ off and git drowned!”.

  “Ah know that,” Uncle Robert cut him short irritably. “Knew him personally; he was in my platoon. But he didn’t jump. He...”

  “Yassuh. Got drunk and fell off’n de lookout porch,” the old darkey recalled uncomfortably. “But dat wouldn’t stop his sperrit from comin’ back, if’n he took a notion.

  “Oh, balderdash!” Uncle Robert roared at him. “There’s no such thing as... as a spirit! Ghost, haunt, call it whatever you like! You know very well Ah... Ah simply make up these yarns’ to amuse the young folks.’’

  “Yassuh.” Shadrach subsided meekly; but his eyes were large and troubled in his wrinkled black face.

  Adelia and I giggled and whispered half the night about our practical joke on Cousin Mark. We gobbled our waffles and wild honey as early as Aunt Cornelia would cook them, and spent the rest of the morning on the phone. Everyone in our little crowd had to be told about Uncle Robert’s hoax, and since most of them rather disliked Cousin Mark for his abrupt and opinionated manner, all were looking forward to seeing him “taken down a peg.”

  AT NOON Bill Saunders turned up, a small freckled youth. He made two or three “practice dives” off the tower porch, disappearing from sight each time mysteriously, and reappearing through the shot well, slime-covered, and draped with cobwebs.

  “Splendid, splendid!” Uncle Robert applauded, chuckling. “You’re an excellent swimmer, my boy... Well, Adelia?” His old eyes twinkled as my cousin stood with her arm about his waist, watching the performance from the point below the tower where she and I were supposed to have seen the ghost a year ago.

  “It’s perfect!” she laughed. “Mark doesn’t know you can swim underwater and come up inside the shot well. He’ll be skeptical, of course, until our spook disappears into the river! Oh, when he goes back to Connecticut to visit his father’s people; he’ll certainly have a tale that will curl their hair!” The day passed slowly under the weight of our young impatience. After dinner our friends began to turn up, by twos and fours, laughing and whispering together, and winking at Uncle Robert, who, was enjoying his little jest immensely. As the long Virginia twilight began to fall, Adelia and I, in fluffy organdy, proposed an innocentlooking game of croquet under the big leafy maples on the lawn. Fireflies were beginning to wink and dart among the hedges. The sun had gone down below the distant blue-gray mountains, but a queer flat light lingered in the sky, giving everything the look of a stereopticon picture.

  “Don’t anybody dare to snicker and give us away,” Adelia ordered. “I want Mark to think this is just another evening of fun and dancing. Unrehearsed... Oh, I can’t wait another minute!” she giggled, consulting the tiny wristwatch Uncle Robert had given her as a graduation present. “He’s late! It’ll be too dark in another half-hour for him to see Bill. But I’ve painted him all over with luminous paint...You don’t suppose Mark’s got cold feet and backed out on his bet?”

  “Not that hard-headed stubborn Yankee!” I scoffed. “An earthquake wouldn’t keep him from... See?” I broke off, triumphant. “Here he comes now over the north hill!”

  A solitary rider in white sport shirt and brown jodphurs was indeed coming, hell-for-leather, over the far hill that separated the Homeplace from my aunt’s remodeled home. The little bay mare Mark always rode took the hill at a hard gallop and plunged down the other side without slackening speed. A narrow creek with a fence-rambling along its farther bank divided the “bottom land” where the cows and horses grazed. As we watched, holding our breath, my cousin spurred his mount recklessly to take this precarious jump, ignoring the wide-open gate further down.

  “Young idiot!” Uncle Robert muttered; “Rides like a damyankee. No consideration for the hoss... Hah! He’ll break his fool...”

  Even as he spoke the words, the little bay, sailing over creek and fence, caught a hoof on the top rail and fell head over heels. Her rider went sprawling, and did not rise, even after the mare scrambled to her feet and went galloping back home through the open gate.

  Adelia and I gasped, and started to run in that direction. But as we reached the orchard gate, we saw Cousin Mark striding toward us along the narrow path past the spring-house. We waved, he waved back, and Adelia sniffed.

  “He’s okay,” she said, almost resentfully. “Nothing could make a dent in that rhinoceros hide!” But as he approached us, I saw that he looked very pale and dazed. There was a great dark gash across his forehead at the temple, and he limped slightly. With a twinge of remorse we beckoned, ready to call off our little joke. But Mark shook his head mockingly, and pointed to the shot-tower, turning his steps in that direction before he reached the orchard. He shouted something, but wind must have blown the sound away from us, for we could hear nothing but the faint quavering cry of a whippoorwill somewhere along the river.

  Adelia stamped her foot. “See?” she exploded. “He’s so smug, so sure of himself! Going to show us up for a bunch of superstitious nitwits! Just you wait...!”

  We ran back through the orchard to join the others, lined up along the fence to watch Mark. Through the gathering dusk we could see his lone figure toiling up the hill toward the shot-tower, its bleak silhouette picked out sharply against the pale pink-and-gold of the western sky. White sheep dotted the green hillside, but as Mark picked his way among them, they did not start and run, but went on grazing, undisturbed.

  WE BEGAN to laugh and chatter excitedly as my cousin reached the point where the ghost could best be seen. Uncle Robert signaled surreptitiously with a flashlight, and instantly a foreshortened figure, glowing with an eerie green radiance, appeared on the lookout porch. Laughing, we saw Mark stop short, staring up at the apparition. .

  Uncle Robert signaled again. Promptly a harsh quavering cry broke the evening stillness, heart-rending in its despair. The figure on the lookout porch, in gray Confederate uniform and forage cap, suddenly flung itself out into space. Screaming, it fell down, down, to disappear in the swirling river far below. We saw Mark standing on the riverbank, watching intently for the swimmer to bob up. When he did not, my cousin turned uncertainly, looking up, and downstream, while we watched, bent double with mirth at his obvious bewilderment. He turned at last and entered the door of the shot-tower, evidently preparing to climb the spiral staircase and examine the lookout porch from which the spectre had jumped. We fell upon one another, rocked with laughter.

  But, abruptly, my cousin’s figure reappeared and started limping down the hill. He reached the front, gate and stood there, swaying slightly, very pale and disheveled, but smiling in mocking triumph. As Adelia opened the iron gate for him, questioningly, trying to keep her face straight and solemn, Mark began to laugh silently—and held out his hand, palm up.

  At that instant a second dripping figure, in soggy gray uniform and minus the forage cap, was seen slogging down the hill. Bill Saunders reached us and leaned on the fence, grinning disgustedly and coughing a bit as if strangled. Most of the phosphorescent paint had washed off, and he glowed ludicrously only in spots on Uncle Claud’s faded uniform.

  “Bill!”’ Adelia wailed, half-laughing. “Oh, shoot! What went wrong? How did Mark find out...?”

  “Aww!” Saunders ducked his head sheepishly. “I did it perfectly twice before! But this time I had to swim up under the wrong side of the shot c
auldron! Got strangled and darn near drowned! Would have, if Mark hadn’t heard me splashing around and caught me by the collar...”

  All eyes turned on my cousin Mark then, standing there quietly in the gathering dusk, looking oddly weak and pale, but smiling with sardonic satisfaction. His hand was still held out mockingly, and Adelia flounced, over to him, disgruntled.

  “All right, General Grant!” she lashed

  out peevishly as Mark still did not speak. “Start rubbing it in, why don’t you? You outflanked us! You won the bet... and I’m no welcher!” Her brown eyes, twinkled suddenly. “But... I didn’t say where you could kiss me—just on the cheek!” She turned her pretty face up to him, at the same time thrusting a crumpled bill into his hand;

  I gasped as I saw that it was a worthless piece of 1864 currency we had found in the attic, along with Uncle Claud’s uniform.

  “And here’s your five,” Adelia jeered. “I didn’t promise I wouldn’t pay off... in Confederate money!” Mark smiled at her, a one-sided ironic little smile of reluctant admiration. He shrugged and bent to kiss her on the cheek. But abruptly he swayed, an expression of pain and confusion crossing his handsome face, now only a white blur against the darkness. One hand groped for the money Adelia held out, the other went to the dark gash in his forehead. And I saw my pretty cousin’s face soften with tenderness.

  “Oh, Mark!” she cried out’. “You were hurt when your horse threw you! Why didn’t you tell us, instead of going on with this silly bet we...?”

  Someone screamed — a rasping high-pitched sound of utter terror. We all whirled toward the sound, startled. Shadrach, coming across the lawn gravely to find Uncle Robert, had halted abruptly. His darkey eyes were distended with horror, one black hand pointing shakily in our direction. We laughed, thinking he had seen Bill Saunders’ glowing figure, and followed him into the house as he ran from us, still shrieking. But he locked himself in his room and no amount of coaxing would bring him out.